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Nurul Fajri, 150203153, FTK, PBI, 085359417758
Nurul Fajri, 150203153, FTK, PBI, 085359417758
NARRATIVE ESSAYS
THESIS
Submitted By
NURUL FAJRI
NIM. 150203153
First of all, I would like to thanks to Allah, The Most Powerful, for giving
blessing, health, chance and ability to me. Peace and salution are also addressed to
stived in delivering Islam to this world and guided followers to the right path of
life.
This thesis would not have been accomplished without the generous helps
from some people. I would like to thank to my supervisors Dr. Luthfi Aunie, M. A
and Mrs. Rahmi Fhonna, M.A who have given the advice, recommendations,
suggestions, helps and feedbacks. May Allah grant you a special place in Jannah,
Aamiin. The huge thanks are presented to my beloved parents, Mr. Muhammad
A.Jalil and Mrs. Nurhayati S.Pd who have given tireless efforts and strunggles in
dedicating and sacrificing for my education and all aspects in my life. My parents
are the greatest motivator in my life. Without them, I might not be able to go
lucky to be part of this family. Many thanks to all my best friends: Zahara, Cut
Suci Mustika, Miranda, Dedek Riski Maulani, Septi Ariska, Eka Safrida, Nanda
Shalihan, and Safira Ludjan, for support and your encouragement. I feel so
privileged to have met you all and to be your friend. Allah bless you.
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Deepest appreciation and thanks are also dedicated to all the participants
who truly shared their voice with me. Thank you for your trust and your kindness.
Your words will help inform educational leaders on how to create educational
environments that best meet students’ needs and support their academic success.
Finally, I hope the findings of this thesis will be sustainably beneficial for
Nurul Fajri
ABSTRACT
The issues face nowadays are students still have problems in writing generic
structure and language features of narrative texts. This study was designed to
explore the English students’ skill in writing narrative essays. This qualitative
research involved ten English students who were selected by using purposive
sampling. In collecting the data, the writer used document analysis and semi
structured-interview. Accoding to the findings of document analysis, from the ten
data collected only four of them are qualified as narrative essays . Furthermore,
the results of semi structured-interview showed that students have several
difficulties in writing narrative essay such as lack of practice, lack of knowledge
how to brainstorm an idea, lack of vocabulary and grammar.
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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1. Document Analysis .................................................. 28
2. Interview .................................................................. 28
E. Technique of Data Analysis ........................................... 29
REFERENCES ............................................................................................... 60
APPENDICES
AUTOBIOGRAPHY
LIST OF TABLES
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LIST OF FIGURES
Figure 4.8 Data 8 my holiday with my family at sumur tiga beach ............... 41
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LIST OF APPENDICES
research
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CHAPTER I
INTRODUCTION
In the English learning process, there are four skills that must be mastered
by English Foreign Language (EFL) learners, they are listening, speaking, reading
and writing. Writing is one of those skills that can help students in learning and
writing and therefore it becomes more demanding than in the case of writing a
short paragraph. Some aspects that should be noticed in writing an essay such as
the choice of the best topic, the use of grammatical rules, and the using of word
choices.
the students learn about academic writing, especially narrative text. By learning
the narrative writing, the students is not only demanded to master generic
structure, language feature, vocabulary and mechanics, but also to understand the
function of writing.
Writing is one of the skills that the students should be mastered by the
express his or her ideas in written form. By mastering writing narrative text,
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students are able to write or to apply English writing skill in every opportunity. In
reality, many studies conducted by many researchers explained that the students
still have problems in writing a good text in English. The students’ scores in
writing are still low, only some of them get good ones. The problem may be
caused by some aspects: The first is rare opportunity to use English because the
second is the students do not have enough practice in writing text. So, the
students may make mistake in determining the main idea, using the suitable
word, and arranging the sentences. Therefore, the students need to master the
spelling in order to be able to write the correct sentences and arrange them into a
good paragraph. The last, the technique that used by teacher do not support the
students’ motivation to write the paragraph. Besides, these issues are also related
Based on the explanation above, the researcher would like to conduct the
Essay”
B. Research Questions
The research aim is to find out the answers to the research questions as
follow:
1. How do the students explore their skill in writing narrative essay in terms
C. Research Aims
According to the research question above, the aims of this study was
1. To find out how students explore their skill in writing narrative essay in
students and the lecturers. First of all, the English Department students will be
helped in writing narrative essay. Second, this study supports lecturer in teaching
narrative essay. Third this study can be used as a reference for other researchers
E. Terminologies
There are some terms in this study which should be defined in order to
1. Essay Writing
involved in the organization of it. An essay is a group of paragraph that has rules.
It basically consisting of a single topic and a central main idea. There are several
types of essays such as narrative, descriptive, cause and effect, compare and
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researcher uses narrative essay as source of data for exploring students skills in
2. Narrative Essay
beginning, middle, and end of an event. It has an introduction that engages the
reader’s interest, details about the main event or action in the story, and a
conclusion that describes the outcome. Anderson (1997) says that narrative text is
a piece of text which tells a story and attracts the reader or listener of the
writing that tells a story, and it is one of four classical rhetorical modes or ways
F. Previous Studies
Mulyaningsih (2013) conducted the research under the title “An Analysis of
Students’ Ability in Writing Narrative Text”. This study focused on the analysis
linguistic features. A qualitative case was used in this study. The data of this study
were nine junior high school students’ narrative texts that came from low, middle,
and high levels of achievement. The analysis of the data indicates that the students
from low and middle achievers have insufficient knowledge of writing narrative.
It can be seen from the schematic structure and linguistic features of the texts.
Moreover, the students from these levels of achievement still need a lot of writing
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guidance from the teacher. Furthermore, for high achiever student, the teacher
only needs to remind the student to read again the text for several times to avoid
implemented.
Another research was done by Sari (2017), the title is “Using Story Circle
discuss one way of solving the problems of students in writing narrative texts,
namely by using Story Circle. In this activity, students were divided into several
groups and then the teacher read one of the narrative texts in the form of fairy
tales, fables or legends that they have never known before. They rewrote the text
they had heard before in accordance with the generic structure and language
features found in the narrative text, but with different versions according to their
imagination. After they wrote the first few sentences of the story on the paper they
had each, the students gave the paper to a colleague on their left. Then, their
colleagues added the next sentence based on the idea of the story that had been
written before. This activity continued until they completed the complication
section of the story. When the paper returned to the real owner, the student wrote
down the resolution. Activities Story Circle is expected to be one of the variations
of learning to write in the class so that students are able to pour their ideas
LITERATURE REVIEW
A. Nature of Writing
1. Definition of Writing
writing. Besides, Gonzales (2010) stated that writing is how the writer considers
the environment, culture, material of learning and words chosen. These definitions
also supported by Hedge (2000) cited in Gonzales (2010). He states that “writing
requires composers to carry out a series of activities that involve not only writing
selecting appropriate language... and editing them”. In other words, writing is the
skill that must be mastered by the writer to express ideas and put in words.
a creative and informative text containing spelling, word choice, sentence level,
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exposition, and argumentative writing. In this term, compare and contrast is also
ideas or information. Yi (2009) supported the benefits of writing but not the whole
determine the topic of the text whether it is for exercise or exam based on teacher
ideology for getting students' needs. Besides, Rao (2007) cited in Nyasimi (2014)
clarifies that writing “motivates students to organize ideas, analyse, criticize and
develop the ability to summarize”. To conclude, the writing takes a main part in
developing the concept of writing and makes the student open their mind of the
2. Type of Writing
divided into three parts: beginning, middle, and end. A good composition is a
composition in which the paragraphs are arranged logically and smoothly from
the beginning until the end. Reid (1993) states that there are two ways in which
students may express their thoughts and ideas into English writing; namely
a. Controlled writing
which students are instructed to copy and in which to then make discrete changes
or fill in the blanks. This will enable students to write with the structure,
students are first given sentence exercises, then paragraphs to copy or manipulate
singular. They might also change words to clauses or combine sentences. With
these controlled compositions, it is relatively easy for students to write and avoid
b. Guided Writing
transit before going to the free writing. In this type, the students are still guided
but not given full control by the teacher. The teacher gives only little scaffolds
while the writing process. Students are allowed to try some free composition after
c. Free Writing
This type stresses writing quantity rather than quality. Teachers who use
this approach assign vast amounts of free writing on given topics with only
rather than on accuracy and form. Once ideas are written down on the page,
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grammatical accuracy and organization follow. Thus, teachers may begin their
classes by asking students to write freely on any topic without worrying about
grammar and spelling for five or ten minutes. The teacher does not correct these
pieces of free writing. They simply read them and may comment on the ideas the
writer expressed. Alternatively, some students may volunteer to read their own
writing aloud to the class. Concern for “audience” and “content” are seen
3. Characteristic of Writing
Rao (2017) explained that the characteristics of writing are look at the
where a good writing least has two requirements insist of main topic and
a. Unity
Reid (1993) said that unity of the text means the relevance of the sentences
in a paragraph. A text has unity if all of the sentences in the text discuss one main
idea. The sentences in the paragraph must support the topic sentence. If there is a
sentence in a paragraph which is not in line with the topic sentence, it means that
Reid (1993) defined as the more limited term; specific words and phrases
(transitions, pronouns, repetitions of the key words and phrases) that tie prose
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together and direct the readers. Cohesion is achieved through the use of variety of
is the underlying organizational structure that makes the words and sentences in
discourse unified and significant for the readers. Achieving coherence in a text is
actually the writer’s job. The readers then just ‘follow’ the writer and not only
understand the words, sentences, and paragraphs, but also relate them to each
other and see what purpose the writer serves in the development of the text. The
writer may use connectives to achieve coherence such as ‘although’, ‘but’, ‘for
example’. A paragraph can be said as coherent when the movement from one
sentence to the next is logical and smooth. Besides those requirements, there are
convention.
punctuation, and capitalization. The writer should use conventions to enhance the
Punctuation should delicated and guided through the paper. Capitalization and
c. Paragraphing
Paragraphing must be obvious and consistent and make the text easy to
understand. Again, there should be coherence and cohesion within and among the
paragraphs in the text, and it must be unity; consistent in developing the idea of
the text.
d. Grammar
This is the basic language skill that is used in writing. Including tenses,
writer must use correct grammar that makes it easy for the reader to understand
e. Spelling
writers use in the text. The writers must use correct spelling in all words, even on
difficult words they used to make the text clear, readable, and easy to understand.
The writer should use Standard English for all words’ spelling.
f. Punctuation
Punctuation is very important to make the text clear and the content easy
sentences. According Rao (2017), puctuation used in written text guides the
readers to understand the meaning of the sentences discussed and avoid the
g. Capitalization
B. Essay Writing
(2000), students easily fulfilled their academic demands by learning writing skill.
explained that academic materials provided are used to write an essay by the
1. Definition of Essay
paragraph. It developing some ideas from one topic discussed in written text.
Besides, it is a text arranged focuses on the topic given which affect readers easy
to abreast the meaning. Furthermore, Eunson (2014) describes that essays are
“documents on a specific topic that contain a mix of fact and opinion, laid out in
2. Type of Essay
Eunson (2014) explains that there are four types of Essay, they are :
a. Narrative Essay
While telling a story may sound easy to do, the narrative essay challenges
students to think and write about themselves. When writing a narrative essay,
writers should try to involve the reader by making the story as vivid as possible.
The fact that narrative essays are usually written in the first person helps
engage the reader. “I” sentences give readers a feeling of being part of the
b. Descriptive Essay
Wardani (2014) explains that descriptive essay is “a text that gives information
should show, not tell, through the use of colorful words and sensory details.
The best descriptive essays appeal to the reader’s emotions, with a result that is
highly evocative.
c. Expository Essay
contrast essay, the cause and effect essay, and the “how to” or process essay.
Because expository essays are based on facts and not personal feelings, writers
don’t reveal their emotions or write in the first person. Besides, Abdallah
(2015) stated that expository essay has a function “to explain something to the
knowledge about how to complete a task or how something is done” (p. 54).
d. Persuasive Essay
the persuasive essay is to convince the reader to accept the writer’s point of
view or recommendation. The writer must build a case using facts and logic, as
(2015) stated the writer should present all sides of the argument, but must be
correct.
3. Characteristic of Essay
Eunson (2014) said that in a good essay, there are several items structured
the first part of the essay which usually describes the main idea of the topic. Based
on Oshima and Hogue (2016), the introduction has two parts insist on a general
statement and thesis statement. In the general statement, the writer is demanded to
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give interesting information so the readers pay attention to the reading essay.
Meanwhile, the thesis statement is used to state the main idea and describe the
Another component of the essay is called the body paragraph. In this term,
paragraphs are given consist of three but it could be more depends on the writer's
explanation or topic discussed. Oshima and Hogue (2016), explained that each
paragraph . The final part of the essay is a conclusion. Besides, Langan (2008)
said that the concluding paragraph is “the essay by briefly restating the thesis and
times, the main supporting points”. It is the main points reviewed in the body
paragraph. The following chart that was adapted from Oshima and Hogue (2016)
is shown to the readers to explain the overall components of the essay illustrated
as following:
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I. Introduction
General statement
Thesis statement
Topic sentence
A. Support
B. Support
C. Support II. Body
Concluding sentence A. Topic sentence
1. Support
2. Support
3. Support
(concluding sentence)
B. Topic sentence
1. Support
2. Support
3. Support
(concluding sentence)
C. Topic sentence
1. Support
2. Support
3. Support
(concluding sentence)
III. Conclusion
Restatement or summary of
the main points; final
comment
C. Narrative Essay
personal letters and entries in diaries and journals. Narrative text is also an
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essential part of casual conversation, and it may dominate tell tales. Speeches and
shaggy dog stories, as well as news the feature stories presented on television
According to Keraf (2001) states that “Narrative text as a story tells or describes
an action in the past time clearly. Furthermore, Gutierrez at al., (2015) defined
which can be found in every setting of human interaction” (p. 45). In addition,
narrative text also deals with problematic events which lead to a crisis or turning
events, either real or imaginary, that is written or told in order to entertain people.
This type of text structurally organizes the action, thought, and interactions of its
characters into pattern of plot. In short, any time you “tell what happened” you
Although a narrative text may be written for its own sake-that is simply to
recount events in most college writing narrative text is used for purpose, and a
sequence of events is presented to prove a point. The socail purpose of this type
the text is entertaining because they deal with the unusual and unexpected
development of events. It also instruct because they teach readers and listeners
that problems patterns of behavior that re generally highly valued. For instance, a
narrative essay about first date, your purpose may be to show your readers that
dating as a bizarre and often unpleasant ritual. Accordingly, you select and
arrange details of the evening that show your readers why dating is bizarre and
unpleasant.
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happened?” Narrative text as a story, so it is should have the element that makes
the story more interesting to the reader such a conflict and conclusion of the story.
written or told in order to entertaint and to amuse the reader. Based on the above
narrative essay, we can essentially telling a story, whether we are relating a single
story of several related ones, and we can tell it in the first person and third person.
2. Kinds of Narrative
According to Joyce and Feez (2000), there are two types of narrative essay
writing that tells the true story. It is often used to recount a person’s life story,
and informational writing. Meanwhile, fiction is a kind of narrative that tells the
untrue story. The story made up by the writer such as short story, comics, novels,
etc. The main purpose of this fiction is to amuse, or sometimes to teach moral
lessons.
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3. Characteristic of Narrative
founded in narrative text consisting into generic structure and language features.
a. Generic Structure
a) Orientation/Exposition:
The introduction of what is inside the text. What the text is talk in general.
b) Complication/rising action:
explores the conflict among the participant. Complication is the main element of
narrative. Without complication, the text is not narrative. The conflict can be
c) Resolution:
The crises are resolved. In this part, the implication may be resolved for
course possible in certain types of narrative which leaves us wondering “How did
it end?.”
b. Language Feature
3. The use of noun phrase, that is a noun that followed by adjective, for
material process (behavioural and verbal), use of relation processes and mental
processes, use of temporal conjunction, and circumstances, and use of past tense”
(p. 73).
pattern carefully. Reid (1993) states there are several points that must be involved
a. Hook
fact.
b. Background
The background tells the history or what happened before the action.
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c. Thesis
The thesis sentence prepares the reader for the main action of the
story, but it doesn’t tell the whole story (just a “hint” about the main
action).
d. Body Paragraphs
The body paragraphs tell the main story. They use a lot of details to
e. Conclusion
1. Difficulties in Writing
a. Psychological Problem
present when we use language, writing on the other hand is essentially a solitary
activity and we are requires to write on our own without possibility of interaction
or the benefit of feedback. This is itself makes the act of writing difficult.
b. Cognitive Problems
to master the written form of the language such as the use of the cohesion,
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punctuation, etc. Besides, organizing the ideas in such a way that understandable
others language skill (speaking, reading, listening, and writing). Although these
skill communication in speaking for example the other productive skill which
we do not. Reading and listening are respective language skill since reading can
2. Elements of Writing
In many literatures, writing has some important elements. Gaith (2001) for
mechanical skills, treatment of content, stylistic skills and judgment skills. It was
and mechanics. The four sources from which the elements of writing are taken, it
can be summarized that writing consists of four main elements, namely content,
a. Content
topic with the writing purpose or judgment and supporting ideas. In short, content
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is associated with the way a writer treats the content of his or her writing in such a
way for his or her writing does not contain extraneous or loosely related
information.
b. Paragraph Structure
this part, a creativity of a writer to convey and to develop his or her main idea in
an elaborated manner can be assessed through the ability of the reader to follow
beginning, middle and end. It also uses transitional devices, details, examples,
c. Mechanics
punctuation, spelling appropriately. This aspect is very important since it leads the
definitely. The use of favorable mechanics in writing will make the readers easy
a. Capitalization
others.
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b. Punctuation.
unity of meaning and suggest how the units of it related to each other.
c. Spelling.
RESEARCH METHOD
A. Research Design
setting, data analysis inductively going from particulars to general subjects and
B. Research Sites
Aceh. Universitas Islam Negeri (UIN) A-Raniry (State Islamic University) is the
UIN Ar-Raniry was given as a new name for previous IAIN (The State Institute
for Islamic Studies) Ar-Raniry. UIN Ar-Raniry was firstly established on the 5th
Aceh. As an Islamic University, it is not only concerned with Islamic affairs but
also concerned with general knowledge with some branchers. There are nine
faculties in UIN Ar-Raniry, namely Ilmu Tarbiyah dan Keguruan Faculty, Syariah
dan Hukum Faculty, Ushuluddin Faculty, Dakwah dan Komunikasi Faculty, and
Adab dan Humaniora Faculty, Ilmu Sosial dan Pemerintahan Faculty, Ekonomi
dan Bisnis Islam Faculty, Psikologi Faculty, Sains dan Teknologi Faculty. The
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(English Department).
represented the sample for research. It is one of the leading and reputable
this term, the researcher researched in the Faculty of Education and Teacher
C. Research Participants
The population of this research was the third semester of the English
students department which the students are taking their essay writing class. The
participants of this research were 10 students of the third semester. They were 4
(four) males and six (6) females. In this study, the researcher used purposive
technique without any theory beyond and “researcher decides what needs to be
known and sets out to find people who can and are willing to provide the
information.
1. Document Analysis
elicidate meaning, gain understanding and empirical knowledge. From the ten
data collected of participants, only four of them are qualified as narrative text.
Two of the participants wrote the descriptive text. Meanwhile, six participants
2. Interview
question of the students skills in writing narrative essays correctly. In this study,
the researcher used semi-structured interview. Cook (2008) explains that in semi-
structured interview, the researcher has more guidance over the direction of the
but still the informants are not restricted in elaboration or changing the course of
students of the third semester in PBI which the students of the third semester are
taking their Essay writing class, 6 of them were male and 4 of them were female.
In this interview section, each participant were interviewed about 15-20 minutes
depending on the question and situation. The data were recorded by using a
handphone. The researcher spoke in Indonesia and the transcription of the record
analyzing situation.
In analyzing the data, the researcher used data analysis procedure that
element in any conduct research. All collected data was meaningless, if did not do
the analysis. The results of the analysis provided an overview of the direction,
purpose and intent of the study. Techniques of analyzing data in this research used
arranging all information gained from interview and document analysis. The data
were analyzed through several stages. First, document analysis is used in order to
find out how the text narrative essay is gained by the students relating to their
problems face through the interview section. Second, the researcher recorded the
5. After getting the data, the researcher drawn the conclusion by analysed it.
6. Relating to the interview result, the researcher involved the text narrative
A. Research Findings
Rooting back to the research questions posed in the earliest chapter, this
chapter provides the results in concern to those two research questions. First, it is
concerning the generic structure and language features of narrative text. Second, it
There are three major features of narrative text, they are orientation,
Orientation is the stage where the author introduces all important elements of the
story, namely characters, characterization, time and place settings, and plot.
Complication is the stage where the conflict(s) happen. So that, in narratives, there
should always be conflicts. And last, it is resolution. It is the stage where the
conflicts are being resolved and the ending is settled. It can be happy ending, or
sad ending.
structure of each writing is examined as below. Below is data entitled Warnet Boy.
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From the figure above, it can be seen that the author has good ability in
writing a narrative text. He inserted the introductory part where he listed all the
setting, as well as the plot which is in chronological order. Then, he also raised the
Excerpt 1
“... my parent got angry for what I had done, the worst thing I
ever felt when my father picked me out while I was playing
game and then struck me at home, they even cut off my pocket
money and kicked me out of home”.
The readers can feel the conflicts that were shouldered by the author
through the narrated situation. He felt so terrible that his parents also drive him
out of their house. It is clear that his experience was not easy in regards to his
hobby—playing internet games. Later on, the resolution that he stated was the
my useless hobby”. The author believed that his hobby was very destructive that
he had to lose the connection from both of his parents. And this story ends in an
The second is a data with the title The Crazy Goat. The data is displayed
as in the following.
From the second narative text above, it can be seen that the author inserted
the orientation part. First, the character of the story is “I”. She also frequently
mentioned “we” but she did not speficify the member of “we” that she means. She
also used pronoun of “us”, and “our” without explicitly specifying the referents.
narrative. Concerning to time setting, it happened during later night. The place
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setting was in an art gallery at her former boarding school. The plot is
chronological plot.
Secondly, the complication part was when they were really frightened by
Excerpt 2:
“"nan .... why does that goat still see us huh? ... I am
afraid ...". After heard my friend I immediately looked at the
goat, for some reason we began to fear then ran small but I was
still a bit relaxed so that I was left behind, I accidentally looked
back because I was curious "will the goat still see?", I muttered
to myself, and it turns out the goat walked as behind me.
That night, I saw the goat's eyeballs splashed very red, I
was shocked and immediately ran at the front, my friends
noticed my escape and immediately followed. In front of us
someone almost locked the door of our hostel screaming to
prevent it...”.
What happened as the conflict in this story was at the time the author and
her friend(s) became really afraid of the goat. They could not do anything else but
running away from it. This is the conflict that the author highlighted in her
narrative. Finally, the resolution was when they reached home safely and they
managed to escape from the frightening goat as she wrote “we managed to enter
and didn't forget to lock the door quickly. Our breathing was breathless but with a
relieved heart because it managed to run away from the “crazy goat”.
The writing above is basically not a narrative writing. Although the author
put the title “My last holiday” as if it was a narrative, there are a lot of narrative
elements that seem to be missed. First of all, analyzing the introductory part—
character, characterization, time and place setting, and plot—he did not mention
every part. The character of this writing is “I”, but there is no characterization. He
did not depict the characterization of “I” explicitly. Later, there is also no time
setting. Although he mentioned “my last holiday”, but there is not any occurence
that he narrated about his last holiday. The same thing also happen with the place
setting. He did not mention any place setting. Regarding the plot, there is no plot
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at all. He wrapped the description with some opinions and the adjustment of his
feelings.
narrated in this writing. The following excerpt may look like the confllicts, but it
is not.
Excerpt 3
description of his life problems not the narration of his life problems. In order to
mentioned earlier such as character, characterization, time and place settings, and
plot.
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place to put any resolution. Because resolution means how the character deals
with the conflict whether he fights for it and it ends happily or he surrenders to it
and it ends sadly. The final paragraph of this writing is not the resolution, it is an
advice that the author suggested for other people who are having tough life as his.
Besides, he was also adjusting his own emotional condition to be stronger in the
The data displayed above is given the title “Newbie Experience” by its
author. From the title, it surely pictures an interesting story in it, and the story is
supposed to be about the author’s experience when she was only a freshman at the
university.
freshman student at the college. The time setting is in the beginning process of
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campus orientation, for sure. The place setting is on campus. However, after read,
it can be seen that a specific narrative is not being told there. The passage is more
likely to tell about the author’s personality. The author emphasizes on how she
acted in the beginning of campus semester when she started as a new freshman.
the consequence, there is not any resolution either. At the end, she inserted a
sentence of “So that, i have to learn more and try to remember the material that i
want to explain” which is not a resolution, but looks more like an opinion or
adjustment for her in alligning with her problem during the early times of campus.
Similarly as the previous text, it is a recount text rather than a narrative text.
From the story above, the first thing to see is the characters and
explanation about the characterizations of these two characters. Then, the time
setting is in the end of year and the place setting is in Sabang. Concerning to plot,
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there is no clear plot as the author did not insert any plot sequence. What makes
this writing excluded from the narrative category is that it has no elements of
The story above may also seem as a narrative because there are some
characters in it. The characters are “I” and “my four friends”. There are also
characterization for every character. However, there is no conflict raised until the
end of the story. The author mostly described the places where they are from, the
group of classes they were divided, and other things which clearly are not
were raised. Because the absence of these two important narrative elements, this
Similar to the sample shown previously, the text above is also not a
narrative. It is clear from the title that the author chose for this writing, which is
“My Hobby”, which directly sounds like a descriptive text rather than a narrative
text. To be more specific, the facts can be found when the text is investigated. The
first line in the paragrapgh is located the definition of music. This is clearly an
The so that, there is the whole absence of all narrative elements. There are not
From the data above, it can be seen that there are characters in the story
which are “I” and “My family”. The time setting is during the last holiday and the
place setting is at the Sumur Tiga. The plot is also chronological plot. However,
There is also no resolution in this story. As a result, this text is not categorized as
Later, the following data is also one of the text written by one of the
participants.
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The text above is a good example of a narrative. It can be seen that there is
a character brought into the story, which is “I”. There is also the characterization
for this character. “I” is four-year old boy, woke up early, and played arond the
2004. The place setting is in the author’s house. The plot is chronological.
wrote “Suddenly a great earthquake occured and destroyed so many part of the
cityand then my parents diractly looked after me and saved me and took me to the
safe place”. This happened all of sudden when he was playing around his house.
Later, the resolution is when he inserted “After the waves receded i and my
parents tried to went down and seek for help, on the way i saw that Banda Aceh
completely destroyed at that time.i saw corpse everywhere and that experience left
happened and it left him with tragic memory. The plot is a sad ending.
very happy with that, cause finally we can graduated and can
passed the school and national examination well.after
graduated, all my friends start to determined what should they
do after graduated.some of them tried to to continue their
study in university(include me), some friend want to
worked,and many others.at the same time,sbmptn for state
university and umptkin for Islamic university.i registered two
of them,I choosen the majors, payed the registration, study
well every night, and follow the test.
After that, I have spend many times to waited the
announcement of the test(sbm and umptkin).until the day of
the announcement arrived, the first announced is sbmptn. I
opened the website, write my name,id number and after that, I
really disspointed with the result and I really sad and cried
because of that.but I still hoping, umptkin is still not
announced.after waiting for 3 weeks,the annoucementday for
umptkinis arrived and I got the same result,same feeling,same
disspointed with sbmptn result.at the same moment after saw
the result, my feeling is mixed and I don’t know what should I
do after that.i don’t want to disspointing my parentsand I
disappointed with my self, and know what can I do is only can
pray expect to him.
Until one day, hope for studyin university appears and I still
have hoped.islamic state university ar-raniry opened
registration path again called pmb local.pmb local is only for
students who don’t passed the sbmptn and umptkin test and
they can use as alternative way to studied in ar raniry
university .f course I am not waste that oppunities, tried to
studied more hardest, pray to Allah Swt and followed the test,
and finally the announcement is coming and the result is I
passed the exam.i am very happy and very grateful to Allah
Swt for the gift and his power, to my parents who always
support me during study and others.
Finally, and now I studied in Islamic university ar raniry in
English major.my dream to studied in university came true,
and all that thing happened because his power and grace.
support from my family and parents very effected for me.for
every who is strumggling, do not to give up.and think for sure
Allah will make it easier and don’t forget to always pray to
Allah Swt anywhere and anytime.
The data above shows a narrative text. The character in the story is “I”.
The characterization is that she is a hard-working person and never give up. The
time setting is during the college entrance test. The place setting is at home and
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campus. The plot is a chronological plot with a happy ending. The complication is
when the author figured out that she did not pass the first exam. The resolution is
when the author got registered in another test and passed that test.
The table above shows that all the texts have the orientation stage. In order
to make a text become a narrative, it should have conflicts and resolutions. These
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two parts are mostly missed parts by the respondents. There is only one text
without orientation part, but there are four texts having no complication part and
In this section, the results that were found in concern to the language
features of the narrative texts written by the students are displayed. The language
features in this case is scoped into three major scopes. They are: first, the use of
past tense; second, the use of behavioral verbs such as do, make, sing, sit, sleep
and verbal process verbs such as say, remark, insist, ask; and third, the use of
Just to mention, from the ten data collected, only four of them are qualified
as narrative texts. Two of the rest are categorized as description, and the other
four are recount. Consequently, those non-narrative data are not analyzed for their
language features. Initially, to see the completion of these features in the narrative
2 The crazy goat Was, learned, Asked, ignored, glimpsed, A memorable day,
returned, were, had, ignored, muttered, didn’t the goats’ eyeballs,
stayed, asked, forget. a relieved heart, the
ignored, glimpsed, crazy goat, a very
whispered, looked, historic night.
muttered, walked,
saw, locked,
managed, didn’t
forget.
3 My last holiday - - -
4 Newbie - - -
experience
5 Sabang - - -
experience
6 My Holiday - - -
with My
Family at
Sumur Tiga
Beach
7 My best friends - - -
8 My hobby - - -
9 Tsunami Was, woke up, Wanted, screamed, A lovely day, my
played, did not take, observed, remembered. daily life, lovely
occured, destroyed, weather, 4 years
looked, saved, old, a great
wanted, screamed, earthquake, my
got, observed, memory.
happened, reached,
remembered, could,
struggled, rescued,
left.
10 College Disappointed, Disappointed, tried, My favorite major,
entrance exam happened, announced, cried, hoped, the selection
stories graduated, passed, affected. results, campus
saw, tried, entrance selection,
registered, followed, senior high school,
chose, paid, arrived, national
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From the table above, it shows that there are six texts which are not
included as narrative texts so they were not analyzed for the narrative language
features. The texts are the ones entitled My Last Holiday, Newbie Experience, My
Hobby, My Best Friends, My Holiday with My Family at Sumur Tiga Beach, and
Sabang Experience.
The first narrative entitle Warnet Boy employed the past form of verbs
such as was, did, returend, made, spent, went, got, kicked, had, lost. Later, the
behavioral process verbs used in this text were addicted and felt; and there are no
verbal process verbs. Last, the noun phrases with adjectives employed in this text
hobby.
Second, in the text with the title the crazy goat, the past form verbs which
was used are Was, learned, returned, were, had, stayed, asked, ignored, glimpsed,
whispered, looked, muttered, walked, saw, locked, managed, didn’t forget. Then,
the behavioural processes used in this story are ignored, glimpsed, asked, ignored,
didn’t forget. Meanwhile, the verbal processes are asked and muttered. Finally,
the noun phrases used are A memorable day, the goats’ eyeballs, a relieved heart,
Third, in the writing with the title Tsunami which has the past form of
verbs such as was, woke up, played, did not take, occured, destroyed, looked,
struggled, rescued, left; then, the behavioural processes used in this text were
wanted, observed, remembered; and the verbal process was only screamed. Last,
the noun phrases employed in this text are a lovely day, my daily life, lovely
Finally, in the text entitled College Entrance Exam Stories, the past verbs
chose, paid, arrived, announced, opened, cried, mixed, hoped, called, passed,
studied, affected. The behavioural process verbs employed in this text are
disappointed, tried, cried, hoped, affected, while the verbal process in only
announced. The noun phrases with adjectives are my favorite major, the selection
This is the point that the second research question attempts to find the
answer for. In order to figure out the answer, a research instrument which is an
instrument was used to collect the data needed for this question. In the following
is shown the results of the interview. There are eight questions asked on the
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interview as elaborated below along with the response from some participants.
6. Did you think writing narrative essay improve your writing skill?
The first question of the interview was about “What do you think about
narrative essay?”. All respondents (R1 until R10) answered that it is a type of
writing which is frequently found in the form of story and to amuse the readers. In
addition, they understand that the purpose of the narrative is to entertain the
readers. As some of the respondents’s excerpts below (R1 is short for Respondent
R3: “Narrative essays is essays that usually they use simple past
grammar I the writing way, and it usually tell about the story
like, fable, fairytale, and many story like our diary and etc.”
written a narrative essay”, all of the respondents answered that they have written
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narrative texts. Respondents R1 until R10 had the same answer. They said that
they all have written narrative essay. As excerpted from some respondents’ as
shown below.
R7: “Yes sure, I have written in the second semester, and in the
second semester we are train to write about writing, including
narrative essays”.
Then, the third question is “did you find any obstacle in writing narrative
essay?”, they all (R1 until R10) admitted that they face problems mostly in
vocabulary, grammar, and ideas about what to write. As shown in the excerpts
below.
R2: “Yes, my obstacles, first definetly grammar issue, and the second is
how I can built a story, because its really hard for me to make a good
story.”
Next, the fourth question asked them about “What kind of problems do
you find during writing narrative essay?”, they answered as directly excerpted
from some of the respondents below. R1 and R3 have problem with vocabulary.
R2 has problems with ideas. R4, R5, and R6, R7, R8, R9, and R10 have problem
R4: “My problems is like the use of grammar error, I dont know
how to built opening paragraph and how to finsh my story, and I
very hard in determine the word choice”.
they are trying to find in order to tackle the problems they have when writing
narratives as in question “Did you have solution to solve that problems?”, their
responses are as shown in the following. R1, R2, R6, R7, R8, R9, and R10 would
memorize more about the vocabulary, and read a lot about the
story for references”.
Next, concerning the sixth question, all of the respondents (R1 until R10)
agreed that writing narrative essay can improve their writing skill. Their answers
my grammar”.
More specifically, when they were asked the seventh question which is
“In which part do you get improvement? Why?”, they answered as follows. R1
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and R4 improve in vocabulary. R5 improves in ideas. R6, R8, R9, and R10 have
Finally, regarding the last questions about “What do you think about your
narrative essay writing? Why?”. They all (R1 until R10) believed that their quality
of narrative writing still need improvements as we can directly see in some of the
R4: “My narrative essays is not too bad, but I think I still need
to improve regularly, and practice regularly”.
D. Discussion
In this section, there are two points that are going to be discussed. First, it
is about the first research question asking about “How does students’ explore their
features?”. And the second point is about the second research question which is
In order to pose the discussion on the first research question, the notion is
about the students’ ability in writing narrative texts. Initially, the concern is about
the generic structure of the narrative texts namely orientation, complication, and
resolution. From the ten samples, there are only four students who included these
narrative elements in their writing. Meanwhile, the others did not pose the
complete elements. Some only put the characters but not characterization. Some
put characters and characterization, but not the time and place settings. Some even
Then, the stage of the orientation is the phase of complication. This stage
is the most important part of a narrative as it lives up the story with the sense of
stage. This in line with Keraf (2001) who states that narrative is an amusing story
about a person’s experience but it has to contain conflicts, so that there will be
resolutions to be acted upon those conflicts. However, six of the samples did not
write this part and this means that their writing cannot be classified as narrative,
diaries. Meanwhile in description, the topic is being described for its features
Later, the wrapping part is the resolution part. This part should be rooted
from the prior ‘complication’ part. This means that if there is no complication,
see in the writing samples that the narratives without complication stage will
because it moves the characters into stability, whether it is the good stability
which is the happy ending, or the bad stability which is the sad ending. As Adam
develop their ability to understand all elements of the story including the
resolution element. He has examined his students’ ability in the pretest and post-
test in writing narrative. After he gave the treatment, the students ability in
Secondly, the case is about the language features of the narratives. The
narrative language features consist of the use of past tense, the use of behavioral
and verbal process verbs, and the use of noun phrase followed by adjectives. From
the samples we can see that all students who wrote an ideal narrative (with the
excerpts were precisely shown in the display section. There were eight questions
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altogether. From the first interview question, we can understand that all
respondets understand the narrative text very well as they all have written
narrative texts. Later, the following question was about their obstacles when
writing narrative texts. Mostly, their problems are alike. They do not know what
to write and where to start. They do not have enough vocabulary to describe the
actions. Additionally, they were lacked of grammar with the use past tense which
Later, they promoted solutions to solve their own problems, for example
they need to practice more writing narratives, and they also need to read more
stories so that they can understand the elements of the stories very well. As they
understand, it will make them write their own narratives at ease. The next question
was about the skill improvement when writing narrative. They all agreed that
writing narratives can improve their writing skills especially in the scope of
The last question was about their opinion about their own narrative
writing. They admitted that they could write a standard narrative but it is still too
far from perfection. They said that they needed to practice more with the narrative
writing. In addition, they also need to read more stories so that the can perceive
This chapter contains the conclusions which are taken based on the results
and discussion in the previous chapter. In addition, the suggestions are also made
A. Conclusions
Based on the findings, there are two conclusions that can be drawn. First, it
is concerning the generic structure and the language features of narrative texts.
Some students have understood very well the generic structures of narrative as
they already inserted the three stages of narratives into their writing. Meanwhile,
there are still students who do not understand the three stages which are
students who wrote an ideal narrative passage have employed the narrative
language feature in a mannerly way. They used past tense, behavioral and verbal
their ability in writing narratives essays. Most of them have understood very well
the definition of narrative texts. However, they still admitted that they have
problems in writing good narratives. They said that they still need to make more
efforts and practice to a good writer for narrative texts. They need to enhance
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B. Recommendations
The suggestions are addressed to two parties. First, to the English teachers,
it is suggested that they teach their students with story elements very carefully so
that the students can really differentiate between the orientation, complication,
recommended that future studies can cope writer aspect of narrative essay.
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Nurul Fajri